Data Center Inventory Management Using Smart Racks

ABSTRACT

A system for managing physical and virtual inventory in a data center is disclosed. The system includes a resource management system for managing computing resources of the data center, an inventory management system for tracking physical locations of the plurality of hosts and the plurality of virtual machines in the data center and a smart rack for housing a plurality of hosts. The computing resources include a plurality of hosts and a plurality of virtual machines running on one or more of the plurality of virtual machines. The smart rack has sensors for detecting movement of each of the plurality of hosts in the data center. The smart rack also has a control unit to control the sensors and collecting data from sensors. The control unit is coupled to the inventory management system and configured to transmit the collected data to the inventory management system through a network. The plurality of hosts, the resource management system and the control unit are coupled together through the network.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to U.S. application Ser. No. 12/718,388filed on Mar. 5, 2010, entitled “Managing a Datacenter Using MobileDevices”, which is being incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND Data Centers

With the explosive growth in the use of computers to host businessapplications, Internet Websites, etc., a need to build bigger datacenters to house computers and related hardware has also grownexponentially. Many data centers (also known as “server farms”) thesedays typically house thousands of computers and related equipments suchas networking gears, etc.

A data center or a server farm is a facility to house a number ofcomputer systems and related equipment. For example, a businessorganization may house all or some of their computer servers (i.e.,hosts) at one physical location in order to manage these computerservers efficiently. The computer servers in a data center are typicallyconnected to users of the computer servers via the Internet or Wide AreaNetwork (WAN) or Local Area Network (LAN) or any other similar type ofmedium. These computer servers are typically used to host criticalbusiness applications. Since the business operations of these businessorganizations critically depend on the continuous availability of thecomputer servers, special attention is paid to manage data centers toprevent or minimize server down times. Inventory management of thecomputing resources in a data center plays a critical role in ensuringhigh availability of computing resources. Unfortunately, at present,data center inventory is maintained manually, typically usingspreadsheets or similar manual methods. This method of trackinginventory of computing resources is highly inefficient, especially forlarge size data centers.

Data Center Racks

Computer systems and other related components (e.g., network switches,routers, etc.) in a data center are housed in metallic cages, typicallycalled racks. Racks are typically designed to maximize physical spaceutilization in a data center room. A rack may include a number ofchassis. Chassis are used to house computer systems. In some cases, arack may house non-blade computer system directly without a use of achassis. Chassis are typically designed to maximize physical spaceutilization in a rack. Computer systems and other components aretypically mechanically designed to maximize space utilization in achassis. One of these mechanical designs of computer systems is referredto as a blade. A rack typically has wire harnesses for network (andpower) cables that connect each blade to the computer network. Bladesare typically designed to easily slide into chassis slots. Once a bladeis physically put in place in a chassis, typically, the bladeautomatically connects to the network and power adapters in the rack.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

One of the applications of RFID technology is to track moveable objects.A typical RFID system includes a RFID tag and a RFID reader. A RFID tagis typically very small and can be produced in sizes and shapes to beeasily adoptable to the objects to be tracked. A RFID tag typicallyincludes a miniature electronic circuit and a miniature antenna. Theelectronic circuit generates radio frequency waves that are transmittedby the antenna. The range of such transmission is typically configurableand may vary from a few centimeters to several meters. The transmissionrange is configured to a particular range to fit to a particular type ofobject tracking application. A RFID reader is configured to receive thesignals transmitted by RFID tags. One or more RFID readers are typicallyconnected to a computer system, which is configured to read and decipherthe signals transmitted by RFID tags. The signals may include someconfigurable information about the object to which a RFID tag isattached. The information transmitted by a RFID tag generally includesunique identification information about the RFID tag or the object beingtracked.

RFID tags are typically of two types, active tags and passive tags. Anactive tag generally includes a built-in source of power and this typeof tag may transmit signals to relatively greater distances. A passivetag, on the other hand, does not include its own built-in source ofpower and hence requires an external source to activate a signaltransmission. Typically, a RFID reader sends signals to a passive RFIDtag to activate the RFID tag.

Virtualization

The computing industry has seen many advances in recent years, and suchadvances have produced a multitude of products and services. Computingsystems have also seen many changes, including their virtualization.Virtualization of computer resources generally connotes the abstractionof computer hardware, which essentially separates operating systems andapplications from direct correlation to specific hardware. Hardware istherefore abstracted to enable multiple operating systems andapplications to access parts of the hardware, defining a seamlessvirtual machine. The result of virtualization is that hardware is moreefficiently utilized and leveraged.

The advent of virtualization has sparked a number of technologies, whichallow companies to optimize the utilization of their systems. As acompany's enterprise systems are usually installed at various geographiclocations in different data centers, networking protocols are used tointerconnect the various systems, which can then be virtualized into oneor more virtual servers.

With the recent proliferation of virtual systems and servers, properdeployment and inventory management practices have become increasinglyimportant. Even though virtual machines can be tracked using presentlyavailable tools and systems, there are no automated solutions availableto track the physical locations of the physical hosts that host aparticular virtual machine. Having such tracking information isimportant to quickly locate a malfunctioning physical server which ishosting a critical virtual machine. Manual methods of inventory controlwould fail to track such a physical server because virtual machines aremoveable from one physical server to another and may move from onephysical server to another at any time based on occurrence of someevents. Some of these details are beyond the subject matter of thepresent disclosure, hence being omitted.

SUMMARY

In one embodiment, a system for managing physical and virtual inventoryin a data center is disclosed. The system includes a resource managementsystem for managing computing resources of the data center, an inventorymanagement system for tracking physical locations of the plurality ofhosts and the plurality of virtual machines in the data center and asmart rack for housing a plurality of hosts. The computing resourcesinclude a plurality of hosts and a plurality of virtual machines runningon one or more of the plurality of the hosts. The smart rack has sensorsfor detecting movement of each of the plurality of hosts in the datacenter. The smart rack also has a control unit to control the sensorsand to collect data from sensors. The control unit is coupled to theinventory management system and configured to transmit the collecteddata to the inventory management system through a network. The pluralityof hosts, the resource management system and the control unit arecoupled together through the network.

In another embodiment, a smart rack for housing computing resources in adata center is disclosed. The smart rack includes a cage for housing aplurality of chassis. Each of the plurality of chassis has a pluralityof slots. Each of the plurality of slots is configured to receive ablade host and a plurality of sensors to detect insertion and removal ofthe blade host. The sensor network may also be used to sense and/ordetect things such as temperature, vibration, moisture, etc. The smartrack also includes a control unit to control and manage the plurality ofsensors. The control unit has a network interface to couple theplurality of sensors to a network. The control unit also has a powerinterface to couple the plurality of sensors to a power source. Thecontrol unit also includes a microcontroller to execute programminginstructions to perform polling of the plurality of sensors to collectdata. The collected data includes location information of a sensorrelated to the collected data.

In yet another embodiment, a user interface (UI) to control and depict aplurality of smart racks in a data center is disclosed. The UI includesa first graphical display to depict the plurality of smart racks in thedata center. The depiction in the first graphical display mimics aphysical arrangement of the plurality of smart racks in the data center.The first graphical display including visual indicators to depict errorand warning conditions in the plurality of smart racks. The UI furtherincludes a second graphical display to depict a plurality of blade hostsin a smart rack in the plurality of smart racks. The depiction in thesecond graphical display mimics a physical arrangement of the pluralityof blade hosts. The second graphical display including visual indicatorsto depict error and warning conditions in the plurality of blade hosts.The UI also includes a third graphical display to display a bladeinformation about a blade host in the plurality of blade hosts. Theblade information includes system information a list of virtual machineshosted on the blade host, physical location of the blade host in thedata center. The physical location includes smart rack identification,chassis identification and slot identification in which the blade hostresides.

In yet another embodiment, a method of live migrating all virtualmachines from a source smart rack is disclosed. The method includesreceiving a list of a plurality of physical hosts and a list of virtualmachines running on each of the plurality of physical hosts andreceiving physical locations of each of the physical hosts. Then,physical hosts are selected in the plurality of physical hosts that arehoused in the source smart rack. Further, a determination of the sparecapacity of a second plurality of physical hosts that are not housed inthe source smart rack is made. Finally, all virtual machines from thesource smart rack are live migrated to the second plurality of physicalhosts according to spare capacity on the second plurality of physicalhosts.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

So that the manner in which the above recited features of the presentinvention can be understood in detail, a more particular description ofthe invention, briefly summarized above, may be had by reference toembodiments, some of which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Itis to be noted, however, that the appended drawings illustrate onlytypical embodiments of this invention and are therefore not to beconsidered limiting of its scope, for the invention may admit to otherequally effective embodiments. The present invention is illustrated byway of example, and not by way of limitation, in the figures of theaccompanying drawings and in which like reference numerals refer tosimilar elements and in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a logical diagram of a data center management systemin accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates a schematic diagram of a data center rack inaccordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates a schematic diagram of a data center rack chassis inaccordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 4 illustrates a logical diagram of a rack controller in accordancewith one or more embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 5 illustrates a logical diagram of sensors and readersinterconnections with a rack controller in accordance with one or moreembodiments the present invention.

FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary graphical user interface showing racksin a data center in accordance with one or more embodiments of thepresent invention.

FIG. 7 illustrates a flow diagram for preparing a rack for maintenanceor power shutdown in accordance with one or more embodiments of thepresent invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates a logical diagram of a data center management system100. Various parts of Data Center Management System 100 may beinterconnected through a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network(WAN) or the Internet. Hence, Network 120 may be a LAN, a WAN or theInternet. The underlying connection may be either wired or wireless(e.g., WiFi or such). It should be noted that even though some of theparts of Data Center Management System 100 are shown as a box, theseparts may themselves be spread across several physical or virtualsystems and may include associated parts (e.g., databases, networkswitches, etc.). These parts are not being shown and described to avoidobscuring the present disclosure.

Data Center Management System 100 includes a Resource Management System102. Resource Management System 102 manages computing resources of adata center. In one example, Resource Management System 102 (e.g.,VMware vSphere™) enables configuration and management of the computinginfrastructure of a data center. In one or more embodiments, ResourceManagement System 102 may include a user interface to allow easynavigation for computing resources in a data center. Resource ManagementSystem 102 may also provide search functionality to perform lookups forvirtual machines, hosts, datastores, and networks in a data center.Resource Management System 102 may also include alarms to indicatehardware failures of key components such as fans, system board and powersupply. Resource Management System 102 may also provide management ofdata storages, including reporting storage usage, connectivity andconfiguration. Resource Management System 102 may also includemonitoring virtual machines, resource pools and server utilization andavailability.

In one or more embodiments, Resource Management System 102 may alsoinclude support for profile based configuration and management ofvirtualization system configurations and management. Resource ManagementSystem 102 may also be configured to provide power managementfunctionality across the data center computer resources. Through thepower management functionality, Resource Management System 102 mayreduce power consumption by putting hosts in standby mode when thedemand for the computing resources is lower than available onlinecomputing resources. Resource Management System 102 may also providefunctionality for automatically updating or patching software on datacenter hosts and virtual machines.

In one or more embodiments, Resource Management System 102 may also beconfigured to provide physical to virtual (P2V) machine conversionfunctionality. For example, if a host is added to the data center thatis being managed by Resource Management System 102, the host may beautomatically virtualized through automatic installation ofvirtualization software on the host. In one or more embodiments,Resource Management System 102 maintains preconfigured virtualizationsoftware images for different types of host hardware configurations andfor different types of usages. For example, one image may include apreconfigured email server, another image may include a preconfiguredWeb server, etc. The pre-configurations are done to adapt to theproperties of the data center and the business organization that wouldultimately use the newly virtualized host. For example, thepre-configured properties may include specific server names and resourceaddresses.

In one or more embodiments, Resource Management System 102 may provideautomatic discovery of hosts such that when a host is added to the datacenter, the newly added host is automatically added to the list ofresources being managed by Resource Management System 102. A data centermay have one or more instances of Resource Management System 102, allworking cooperatively to provide a highly scalable system that may becapable of managing thousands of hosts and tens of thousands of virtualmachines in a data center.

Resource Management System 102, in one or more embodiments, may alsoprovide resource management for virtual machines to allocate processorand memory resources to virtual machines running on the same physicalservers and to establish minimum, maximum, and proportional resourceshares for CPU, memory, disk and network bandwidth. Resource ManagementSystem 102 may also modify these allocations while virtual machines arerunning and may enable applications to dynamically acquire moreresources to accommodate peak performance. Resource Management System102 is also capable of effectuating moving of virtual machines from onehost to another when needs arise (such as failovers, power management,etc.) or on occurrences of some pre-selected events in the data center.

Resource Management System 102, in one or more embodiments, exposesprogramming and communication interfaces to enable exchange of data toand from other parts of Data Center Management System 100 (e.g.,Inventory Management System 110).

Data Center Management System 100 includes an inventory managementsystem 110. Inventory Management System 100 is coupled to a data store112 to store inventory data, including physical locations of variouscomputing resources in a data center. Data Center Management System 100further includes one or more smart racks 150 that are in communicationwith Resource Management System 102 and Inventory Management System 110through Network 120. Inventory Management System 110 is configured tostore physical locations of Racks 150 in a data center. The physicallocations of Racks 150 may be stored by isle and sequence numbers or byany other addressing mode that is capable of providing identifiablephysical locations of racks in a data center. For example, referencecoordinates with respect to one corner of a data center room may be usedfor location identification of a particular rack. In another example, amatrix addressing (row x, column y) may also be used if Racks 150 areplaced in a substantial rectangular arrangement in a data center room.As it is explained later in this document, a rack is mechanicallyconfigured to receive a plurality of chassis and each chassis may haveprovisions to provide storage for a plurality of blades. InventoryManagement System 110 also stores physical locations of each chassis andeach blade slot. Hence, a particular blade slot may be addressed by thecombination of a rack location identifier, a chassis number and a bladespace number.

FIG. 2 illustrates a rack 150 in one embodiment. Rack 150 can besubstantially rectangular in shape. However, a person skilled in the artwould appreciate that other mechanical shapes are within the scope ofthis disclosure. Rack 150 may be made of a sturdy material, such asmetal, wood, alloy or polymer plastics (or any other man made materials)so long as the material is capable of providing a sturdy cage to holdheavy payload. The dimensions of Rack 150 may depend upon theconfiguration of the space within a data center room in which Rack 150would be housed. The outer physical shape of a rack typically allowsstacking up a plurality of racks side by side. The space inside Rack150, in one embodiment, is designed to maximize natural air flowcooling. However, Rack 150 may also be configured with one or more fansto route heat out of Rack 150 effectively. Rack 150 may also includetemperature, humidity and/or other types of sensors. These sensors maybe configured to be in communication with Rack Controller 170 (to bedescribed later) and data collected through one or more of these sensorsmay be stored in Inventory Management System 110 along with other datarelated to a particular rack. In another embodiment, this data may alsobe stored locally in Rack Controller 170.

Rack 150 includes a plurality of RFID adapters 160 to receive sensorhubs of chassis (shown in FIG. 3). Each RFID adapter 160 includes amechanical socket to easily receive a counterpart socket that isattached to a sensor hub in a chassis. Rack 150 may have guide rails toenable chassis to slide easily into a chassis slot. Guide rails, RFIDadapter sockets and sensor hub sockets are so aligned that when achassis slides in a chassis slot, the sensor hub of the chassis comes inmechanical and electrical contact with the corresponding RFID adapter inthe rack.

In one embodiment, Rack 150 further includes a rack controller 170. Wireharnesses that connect various sensors, sensor hubs and RFID adaptersterminate in Rack Controller 170. Rack Controller 170 is coupled toInventory Management System 110 through Network Interface 180, which isan interface to couple Rack Controller with Network 120. Rack Controller170, in one embodiment, includes a programming logic to read and collectdata from various sensors and store the data, at least temporarily,prior to transmitting the collected data to Inventory Management System110. In other embodiments, Inventory Management System 110 triggers theprocess of data collection. That is, at least a part of the programminglogic to read and collect data from sensors resides in InventoryManagement System 110. Rack Controller 170 further includes a powerinterface 190 to provide power to Rack Controller 170 and variousadapters and sensors in Rack 150. In one embodiment, Power Interface 190is also configured to provide electrical power to hosts in Rack 150through a power wire harness. In another embodiment, a separate powerharness is provided to power hosts and other computing resources in Rack150. In such embodiment, Rack Controller 170 may monitor the status ofthe power supply for reporting purposes.

In one embodiment, Rack 150 includes a Display Unit 172 to displaymessages from Inventory Management System 110 and/or Resource ManagementSystem 102. Display Unit 172 may also be configured to provide a userinterface to Rack Controller 170, hence enabling a designated user(i.e., a user who is authorized to manage a data center) to interactwith Rack Controller 172 for the purposes of configuring, programming,testing, or debugging Rack Controller 170 and sensors. Display Unit 172may be a liquid crystal display (LCD) or any similar type of displaythat is capable of displaying textual and/or graphical data and toreceive inputs from a designated user. In another embodiment, DisplayUnit 172 may include one or more lighting devices to provide visualmessages using predefined patterns or color coding for communicatingpredefined sets of messages. For example, a red light signal mayindicate an error condition somewhere in Rack 150. A yellow light mayindicate a warning, etc. In one example, these lights may beappropriately placed on the racks in a data center room so that when thedesignated user walks into the data center room, he/she may readily spotracks with error conditions. The designated user may use an adminconsole of Inventory Management System 110 to get more information aboutthe error condition. Moreover, Display Unit 172 may also be used to getdetails of an error or warning conditions. Inventory Management Systemmay be configured to send notifications via email, text messaging, etc.to a pre-configured group of people when error conditions arise in arack. In another embodiment, a similar display unit may be provided ateach chassis.

Referring now to FIG. 3, which illustrates an exemplary schematicdiagram of a chassis 200. As mentioned earlier, Chassis 200 provideshousing for one or more blades. As explained briefly earlier, a blade isa common term used for a special mechanical design for a computer systemor any other electronic component such as a network switch. The bladedesign is suitable for quickly inserting or removing computing resourcesto or from a network and to provide optimal space utilization in a rack.The term “blade server” is well known in the art, hence a detaileddescription is being omitted to avoid obscuring the present disclosure.Chassis 200 includes one or more slots for sliding blades into Chassis200. Each slot has electro-mechanical connectors to electrically andmechanically couple an inserted blade with Network 120 and the powersupply. Storage Area Storage (SAN) interfaces may also be provided ineach slot on Chassis. Each slot may be provided with a RFID sensor(i.e., a RFID reader) 220, which is capable of reading a RFID tag. Eachinserted blade, if the inserted blade needs to be monitored by RackController 170, is provided with a RFID tag. Chassis 200 also includes asensor hub 210 to aggregate input wiring from RFID Sensors 220. SensorHub 210 may be a USB hub, in one embodiment. In other embodiments,Sensor Hub can be any multi conductor polarized connector. Sensor Hub210 is configured to electrically and mechanically couple RFID sensorswith the corresponding RFID Adapter 160 in Rack 150 when Chassis 200 isincorporated in Rack 150. In one embodiment, a computing resource (e.g.,a computer system) may be directly incorporated in Rack 150 withoutChassis 200. In such embodiment, the mechanical shape of the computingresource is similar to Chassis 200. Chassis 200 may also includetemperature, humidity and/or other types of sensors. These sensors maybe configured to be in communication with Rack Controller 170 and datacollected through one or more of these sensors may be stored inInventory Management System 110.

It should be noted that existing conventional racks may be retrofittedwith above mentioned electro-mechanical hardware (e.g., various sensors,hubs, adapters, rack controller, etc.) to convert existing conventionalracks into Rack 150.

In one embodiment, security features may also be incorporated in Rack150 and/or Chassis 200. For example, a security pad may be installed oneach Rack 150. The security pad may be coupled to an electronic securitysystem and may be used to identify and authenticate a person, whoattempts to remove Chassis 200 or a blade from Chassis 200. The securitypad may have a number pad, a fingerprint scanner or a security cardscanner. Mechanical locks may be provided on removable parts of Rack 150or Chassis 200. These mechanical locks may be released only if a personattempting to remove or insert a component properly authenticatehimself/herself. In one embodiment, Display Unit 172 may also be used asa security pad for entering authentication information.

It should be noted that the mechanical placement of various sensors,hubs, adapters, rack controller, etc. may change depending upon designconsiderations. As such, these components may be placed at any suitablelocations in Rack 150 so long as the functionality remains within thescope of the present disclosure.

It should also be noted that in some embodiments, other technologies(e.g., Bluetooth, Bar codes, Open Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition,etc.) may also be used instead of RFID by using different types ofsensors and devices that are suitable for a particular type oftechnology. For example, if the bar code technology is used, a bladewill be affixed with a unique bar code while RFID sensors are replacedby bar code readers. In one embodiment, MAC addresses of computingresources may also be used instead of RFID. In such embodiment, a MACaddress to Physical location mapping may be stored in InventoryManagement System 110.

FIG. 4 illustrates a logical block diagram of Rack Controller 170. Inone embodiment, Rack Controller 170 includes a microcontroller 197 toexecute programming instructions for controlling Rack 150 sensors, forcollecting data from sensors, and for storing the collected data in alocal database 194. Microcontroller 197 may also be used for enablingcommunication between components of Rack 150 with Inventory ManagementSystem 110 and for providing display logic for Display Unit 172. RackController 170 further includes a communication port 192 to enablecommunication between the sensors of Rack 150 and programming modulessuch as Polling Module 196 and Data Collector 198. Microcontroller 197may also be coupled to Network Interface 180 and Power Interface 190.Microcontroller 197 may also provide an interface to configure RackController 170 through additional programming instructions. Database 194may be a solid state memory device or it can also be a magnetic diskmemory. Database 194 may also be used for storing programminginstructions to or from various modules of Rack Controller 170. DisplayUnit 172 may be used for adding new programming instructions orconfigurations to Rack Controller 170. Alternatively, new programminginstructions and/or configurations may be pushed to Rack Controller 170from or through Inventory Management System 110.

FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic diagram of exemplary interconnections ofRFID Sensors 220, Sensor Hubs 210, RFID Adapters 160 and Rack Controller170. In one embodiment, the interconnections are through a wire harness.In other embodiments, the interconnections may be implemented throughwireless communication technologies such as Bluetooth or WiFi. Inanother embodiment, the interconnections may be provided through the LANwiring that can couple RFID Sensors 220, Sensor Hubs 210 and RFIDAdapters 160 to Network 120. In one embodiment, network communication toand from computing resources in Rack 150 continues to work unaffectedwhen one or more RFID Sensors 220, Sensor Hubs 210, RFID Adapters 160,or Rack Controller 170 malfunction. To avoid introducing an extra pointof failure, the system and process of collecting and managing inventorydata work separate from normal computing operations of computingresources in Rack 150. Moreover, Rack Controller 170 may be equippedwith programming logic to perform routine testing of RFID Sensors 220,Sensor Hubs 210 and RFID Adapters 160. The programming logic in RackController 170 is also configured to collect inventory data and store atleast a part of collected data locally for a period of time before thecollected data is transmitted to Inventory Management System 110. Thelocally stored data may be transmitted to Inventory Management System110 at pre-configured regular intervals. Alternatively, the locallystored data may be pushed to Inventory Management System 110 whenInventory Management System 110 requests such information. In anotherembodiment, Inventory Management System 110 may retrieve the locallystored data directly from Rack Controller 170 database. Someinformation, for example when a blade is removed, may be transmitted toInventory Management System 110 immediately or as early as possible. Inone or more embodiments, Polling Module 196 performs polling of sensorsin Rack 150 at regular intervals. In another embodiment, any othertechnique for reading RFID tags may be used so long as the technique iscapable of detecting events such as removal of blades, insertion ofblades, etc.

Referring back to Inventory Management System 110 of FIG. 1. In oneembodiment, a user interface may be provided to enable initial dataentry with respect to unique identifications (IDs) of smart racks,chassis and sensors along with physical locations of these components ina data center. When a blade with an RFID tag is inserted in any slot inany smart rack, RFID sensor of that slot sends a signal to RackController 170 (or in another embodiment, Rack Controller 170 mayreceive this information through the polling process). The inventorydata in Inventory Management System 110 is automatically updated toreflect the addition of this new blade including a host name and aunique ID number. Resource Management System 102 is also automaticallyupdated when a new blade is detected in a smart rack. In one embodiment,Resource Management System 102 may automatically install virtualizationsoftware on the newly added host and may also perform furtherconfigurations such as setting up one or more virtual machines on thenewly added host and adding these virtual machines in a particularcluster or some other type of logical group of virtual machines.

FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary graphical user interface (GUI) 250 forviewing data center racks on a display. In one embodiment, GUI 250 showsa graphical view of a data center room in which a plurality of racks arehoused. GUI 250 substantially mimics the physical arrangement of theracks in a data center room. In one embodiment, GUI 250 display may bere-arranged to match the actual arrangement of racks in a data centerroom. The rearrangement may be accomplished by moving displayedgraphical objects on the display in a desired arrangement and saving thenew arrangement. In one exemplary embodiment, Inventory ManagementSystem 110 can be configured to retrieve locations of the plurality ofracks in the data center room through rack location sensors in a datacenter room and may automatically generate a graphical depiction ofracks. In one example, the WiFi triangulation method may also be used todetermine locations of racks in a data center room.

The displayed object on GUI 250 may also be configured to display errorconditions. In one exemplary embodiment, a color coding method may beused to visually display various operational and/or environmentalconditions for each rack. In one exemplary embodiment, when a mousepointer is brought over (or clicked, double clicked, etc.) a particularrack object in GUI 250, GUI 250 displays a graphical view of theinternal details of the rack (as shown as “Rack View” in FIG. 6). Thegraphical objects in Rack View depict a plurality of Chassis and aplurality of blades. A color coded status may also be incorporated ineach of the displayed objects to indicate operational conditions. In oneexemplary embodiment, when a graphical depiction of a chassis or a bladeis selected, more information about the depicted object is displayed(e.g., Blade Information 260). In one embodiment, Blade Information 260may include system information, hosted virtual machines, physicallocation, temperature, humidity, etc. Some of the information, forexample hosted virtual machines, system information, etc. is retrievedfrom Resource Management System 102. Other information may be retrievedeither from the corresponding Rack Controller 150 or from InventoryManagement System 110 depending upon a particular configuration.

GUI 250 may also be used to configure sending out notifications to apreconfigured group of entities. For example, the system may beconfigured to send emails, text messages, voice calls/voice mails, etc.to a preconfigured group of people in the event of the occurrence of oneor more types of error conditions.

Still further, in one exemplary embodiment, Resource Management System102 may retrieve blade location information from Inventory ManagementSystem 110 and use the retrieved information to move critical virtualmachines to relatively safe locations in the data center. For example,if flood conditions are detected, some or all virtual machines on hoststhat reside in the lower parts of racks may be moved to the upper partsof racks. Furthermore, since top parts of racks would generally behotter than the lower parts, some critical virtual machines may be movedto relatively lower parts of racks. It may be noted that ResourceManagement System 102 is capable of moving virtual machines from onehost to another using the live migration technology (e.g., VMwareVMotion™).

In one exemplary embodiment, GUI 250 may be configured to divide racksin a data center in different sections. For example, a particularsection of racks may be reserved for hosting computing resources of aparticular organization (in the scenarios where the same data center isbeing used for hosting computing resources of different businessorganizations). In one embodiment, if the rack reservation is based onbusiness organization, a network fencing scheme may be adopted toprovide network isolation among computing resources of distinct businessorganizations. In another embodiment, the partition may be done based ontypes of computing resources. For example, a particular rack may bereserved to host Web servers and another rack may be marked to hostemail servers. In one exemplary embodiment, when a new blade is insertedinto the rack which is reserved for Web servers, Resource ManagementSystem 102 automatically provisions the newly added blade to be used asa Web server. In one embodiment, when a new blade is added, ResourceManagement System 102 queries Inventory Management System 110 forlocation information as well as any particular type of rack reservation.In one embodiment, rack reservation may be put in place on a live datacenter. In this embodiment, Inventory Management System 110 will notifyResource Management System 102 about changes in rack reservation andResource Management System 102 will live-migrate virtual machinesaccording to the rack reservation scheme.

In one example, Resource Management System 102 may provide automaticpower saving features by consolidating virtual machines on fewer hostswhen computing demand is low and then shutting down the remaining hosts.In one embodiment, Data Center Management System 100 further enhancesthe power save feature by consolidating virtual machines on fewer smartracks when the computing demand is low and then shutting down theremaining smart racks. Further, from time to time, smart racks may beput out of use for maintenance purposes. However, in order to do so, thehosts need be shutdown, hence causing interruptions in computingresources availability. Data Center Management System 100, in oneembodiment, is configured to automatically live migrate computingresources from a particularly identified smart rack. Further, DataCenter Management System 100 may also be configured to monitor computerresource utilization for computing resources on each smart rack and ifit is determined that a particular smart rack is only being used to runa number of virtual machines and if the number is below a set threshold,Data Center Management System 100 may start a process of live migratingthe virtual machine from the particular smart rack to other racks. Oncethe virtual machines are live migrated, the particular smart rack may beput in a standby mode to save power.

Accordingly, FIG. 7 illustrates a process 300 of implementing livemigration of virtual machines from a source smart rack to one or moredestination smart racks. At step 302, a list of physical hosts and alist of virtual machines running each of the physical hosts are receivedfrom Resource Management System 102. At step 304, Inventory ManagementSystem 102 provides the physical locations (i.e., smart racks for eachof the physical hosts). At step 306, the list of physical hosts isarranged by smart rack IDs to make a list of physical hosts on each ofthe smart racks in a data center. Since a list of virtual machine foreach of the physical hosts is available, a list of virtual machines oneach of the smart racks is created. At step 308, virtual machines thatcan be live migrated are identified. In one example, if a smart rackneeds to be shutdown, all virtual machines from this smart rack need tobe live migrated. At step 310, one or more destination smart racks areidentified for receiving the identified virtual machines that are to bemoved. At step 312, such determination may be made based on sparecomputing power on one or more destination racks. For example, if aparticular destination rack has hosts with a total computing capacity torun 100 virtual machines of a certain type and at present there are only20 active virtual machines, then this destination smart rack could becandidate for receiving more virtual machines from the source smartrack. In one embodiment, a max capacity utilization factor of adestination physical host is also considered. In another embodiment, aprior capacity reservation factor of the destination physical host istaken into the consideration. At step 314, live migration of all virtualmachines from a source smart rack is commenced.

With the above embodiments in mind, it should be understood that theinvention can employ various computer-implemented operations involvingdata stored in computer systems. These operations are those requiringphysical manipulation of physical quantities. Any of the operationsdescribed herein that form part of the invention are useful machineoperations. The invention also relates to a device or an apparatus forperforming these operations. In one embodiment, the apparatus can bespecially constructed for the required purpose (e.g. a special purposemachine), or the apparatus can be a general-purpose computer selectivelyactivated or configured by a computer program stored in the computer. Inparticular, various general-purpose machines can be used with computerprograms written in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may bemore convenient to construct a more specialized apparatus to perform therequired operations.

The embodiments of the present invention can also be defined as amachine that transforms data from one state to another state. Thetransformed data can be saved to storage and then manipulated by aprocessor. The processor thus transforms the data from one thing toanother. Still further, the methods can be processed by one or moremachines or processors that can be connected over a network. Themachines can also be virtualized to provide physical access to storageand processing power to one or more users, servers, or clients. Thus,the virtualized system should be considered a machine that can operateas one or more general purpose machines or be configured as a specialpurpose machine. Each machine, or virtual representation of a machine,can transform data from one state or thing to another, and can alsoprocess data, save data to storage, display the result, or communicatethe result to another machine.

The programming instructions and modules can also be embodied ascomputer readable code on a computer readable medium. The computerreadable medium is any data storage device that can store data, whichcan be thereafter be read by a computer system. Examples of the computerreadable medium include hard drives, network attached storage (NAS),read-only memory, random-access memory, CD-ROMs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, magnetictapes and other optical and non-optical data storage devices. Thecomputer readable medium can include computer readabletangible/non-transitory medium distributed over a network-coupledcomputer system so that the computer readable code is stored andexecuted in a distributed fashion.

Although the method operations were described in a specific order, itshould be understood that other housekeeping operations may be performedin between operations, or operations may be adjusted so that they occurat slightly different times, or may be distributed in a system whichallows the occurrence of the processing operations at various intervalsassociated with the processing, as long as the processing of the overlayoperations are performed in the desired way.

Although the foregoing invention has been described in some detail forpurposes of clarity of understanding, it will be apparent that certainchanges and modifications can be practiced within the scope of theappended claims. Accordingly, the present embodiments are to beconsidered as illustrative and not restrictive, and the invention is notto be limited to the details given herein, but may be modified withinthe scope and equivalents of the appended claims.

1. A system for managing computing resources inventory in a data center,the system comprising: a resource management system for managing thecomputing resources of the data center, the computing resources includesa plurality of hosts and a plurality of virtual machines running on oneor more of the plurality of hosts; a smart rack for housing one or morehosts in the plurality of hosts, the smart rack having sensors fordetecting physical movement of the one or more hosts, the smart rackhaving a control unit to control the sensors and to collect data fromthe sensors; and an inventory management system for tracking and storingphysical locations of the plurality of hosts and the smart rack, thecontrol unit is coupled to the inventory management system andconfigured to transmit the collected data to the inventory managementsystem through a network, wherein, the plurality of hosts, the resourcemanagement system, the inventory management system and the control unitare coupled together through the network.
 2. The system of claim 1wherein the resource management system is configured to live migrate avirtual machine in the plurality of virtual machines from a first hostin the plurality of hosts to a second host in the plurality of hostsbased on physical location characteristics of the first host and thesecond host.
 3. The system of claim 1 wherein the resource managementsystem is configured to provide network isolation for a part of theplurality of virtual machines.
 4. The system of claim 1 wherein thesmart rack further includes a plurality of chassis to house more thanone of the hosts, each of the plurality of chassis including a sensorfor detecting an insertion or removal of individual hosts, each of theplurality of chassis including a sensor hub.
 5. The system of claim 5wherein the smart rack further includes a wire harness to couple thesensor with the control unit through the sensor hub in each of theplurality of chassis and a sensor adapter in the smart rack.
 6. Thesystem of claim 1 wherein the inventory management system includes anadministration panel to enable entering location information of thesmart rack in the data center.
 7. The system of claim 1 wherein theinventory management system is configured to retrieve locationinformation of the smart rack through a rack location sensor in the datacenter.
 8. The system of claim 1 wherein the smart rack further includesa display unit to display system messages from the inventory managementsystem.
 9. The system of claim 1 wherein the smart rack further includesa light indicator to indicate error conditions in the smart rack, theerror conditions are determined by one of the inventory managementsystem or the resource management system or the control unit.
 10. Thesystem of claim 1 wherein the control unit includes a microcontroller toexecute programming instructions to perform operations on the sensors.11. The system of claim 1 wherein the control unit includes a networkinterface to couple the sensors with the network.
 12. The system ofclaim 1 wherein the control unit includes a power interface to couplethe sensors with a power supply.
 13. The system of claim 1 wherein thecontrol unit includes a database to provide local storage of thecollected data.
 14. The system of claim 1 wherein the control unitincludes a polling module to activate the sensors at pre-configuredintervals.
 15. The system of claim 8 wherein the control unit isconfigured to be operated by a designated user through the display unit.16. The system of claim 15 wherein the control unit is configured toreceive new control instructions through one of the display unit or theinventory management system.
 17. The system of claim 1 wherein thesensors are at least one of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)sensors, Bluetooth sensors, and bar code sensors.
 18. A smart rack forhousing computing resources in a data center, the smart rack comprising:a cage for housing a plurality of chassis, each of the plurality ofchassis having a plurality of slots, each of the plurality of slots isconfigured to receive a blade host; a plurality of sensors to detectinsertion and removal of the blade host; and a control unit to controland manage the plurality of sensors, the control unit having a networkinterface to couple the plurality of sensors to a network, the controlunit also having a power interface to couple the plurality of sensors toa power source, the control unit having a microcontroller to executeprogramming instructions to perform polling of the plurality of sensorsto collect data, the collected data includes location information of asensor related to the collected data.
 19. The smart rack of claim 18wherein the control unit further includes a database to store datacollected from the plurality of sensors.
 20. The smart rack of claim 18wherein the control unit includes a polling module to perform datacollection operations on the plurality of sensors at pre-configuredintervals.
 21. The smart rack of claim 20 wherein the control unitfurther includes an interface to couple the plurality of sensors withthe polling module.
 22. The smart rack of claim 18 wherein the pluralityof sensors are at least one of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)sensors, Bluetooth sensors, and bar code sensors.
 23. The smart rack ofclaim 18 further including a temperature sensor and a humidity sensor.24. The smart rack of claim 18 further including a security pad andlocks to prevent unauthorized removal of the blade host.
 25. The smartrack of claim 18 further including a display unit to display systemmessages from the control unit.
 26. The smart rack of claim 18 furtherincluding a light indicator to indicate error conditions in the smartrack, the error conditions are determined by the control unit.
 27. Auser interface (UI) to control and depict a plurality of smart racks ina data center, the UI comprising: a first graphical display to depictthe plurality of smart racks in the data center, the depiction in thefirst graphical display mimics a physical arrangement of the pluralityof smart racks in the data center, the first graphical display includingvisual indicators to depict error and warning conditions in theplurality of smart racks; a second graphical display to depict aplurality of blade hosts in a smart rack in the plurality of smartracks, the depiction in the second graphical display mimics a physicalarrangement of the plurality of blade hosts, the second graphicaldisplay including visual indicators to depict error and warningconditions in the plurality of blade hosts; and a third graphicaldisplay to display a blade information about a blade host in theplurality of blade hosts, the blade information includes systeminformation, a list of virtual machines hosted on the blade host,physical location of the blade host in the data center, the physicallocation includes smart rack identification, chassis identification andslot identification in which the blade host resides.
 28. The UI of claim27 further including a select control to add a plurality of smart racksin a rack reservation plan, wherein the UI is configured to transmit therack reservation plan to a resource management system, wherein theresource management system is configured to live migrate virtualmachines in the data center from a rack to another rack based on therack reservation plan.
 29. The UI of claim 27 wherein the resourcemanagement system is also configured to deploy an isolated network basedon rack reservation.
 30. A method of live migrating all virtual machinesfrom a source smart rack, the method comprising: receiving a list of aplurality of physical hosts and a list of virtual machines running oneach of the physical hosts; receiving physical locations of each of thephysical hosts; selecting physical hosts in the plurality of physicalhosts that are housed in the source smart rack; determining sparecapacity of a second plurality of physical hosts that are not housed inthe source smart rack; and live migrating all virtual machines runningon the source smart rack to the second plurality of physical hostsaccording to spare capacity on the second plurality of physical hosts.31. The method of claim 30 wherein the determining of spare capacitytakes into consideration a maximum utilization factor for each of thesecond plurality of physical hosts.
 32. The method of claim 30 whereinthe determining of spare capacity takes into consideration a priorcapacity reservation for each of the second plurality of physical hosts